Free Your Android!

Android is a mostly free operating system
developed mainly by Google. Unfortunately, the drivers for most
devices and most applications from the "market" are not
free (as in free speech, not free beer).
They frequently work against the interest of the users,
spy on them, and sometimes cannot even be removed.

This campaign can help you to regain control
of your Android device and your data. We collect information about
running an Android system as free as possible and try to coordinate
the efforts in this area.

You want a mobile device that is really yours when you bought it?
You want a mobile device that does not spy on you and hands over your data to big corporations?
Then read on!

Why Your Mobile Device Needs To Be Free

Mobile devices are small computers that we carry around all the time.
They know our current location and contain private pictures. We use
them to communicate with our friends, our family and maybe our secret
love. They also provide access to the internet and have built-in
camera and microphone. Being such powerful tools, they can bring great
risks to privacy, but at the same time we can achieve great things
with them: it depends on who controls them.

Freedom and Control

Most mobile devices are not controlled by the users, but by the manufacturer
and the operator. The software that runs on them is not Free Software.
Even Android phones ship with non-free software and proprietary add-ons
that often work against in the full interest of the user. Software
updates will only be made available as long as the manufacturer still has a
commercial interest in your device. The applications (apps) available
from the official market are commonly non-free. Nobody is
allowed to study how they work and what they really do on your phone.
Sometimes they just don't work exactly as you want, but often times they
even contain malicious features.

Running exclusively Free Software on your device puts you in full control.
Even though you may not have the skills to directly exercise all of your freedom,
you will benefit from a vibrant community that can do it together.

Privacy

Our mobile devices contain more personal information than most private
diaries. But proprietary systems, even most Android phones, are designed
to hand over this data to companies like Google or Apple. Most
users do not have full control over the personal data on their device.
Convenient solutions for synchronisation and data backup
trick more and more people into storing all their data on centralised
servers run by some profit driven corporation. These are usually based in the US
and are required to hand your data over to the US government on mere request.
Whoever has personal information about us is able to manipulate us.
Therefore, non-free devices are a threat to democracy and to our society.

Privacy is one of the most important reasons to support Free Software.
Proprietary add-ons like Carrier IQ spy on
smart-phone users without their knowledge. Many apps from the market
contain malicious features. They read your private data, such as
your address book
and "phone home", or they use
Google Analytics
to send data to Google. These are just a few examples out of many that have been
discovered so far. The lack of freedom impedes independent inspection
and secret spy features only become known by accident.

Most smart-phones require you to connect and identify yourself to a
centralised server before you can use them properly. Users have to trust
the server without knowing what information is stored and how it is
processed or related to other data. A phone running only Free Software
does not require you to provide data to an untrustworthy company or
pressure you to do so – at least this is very unlikely, as the
software's actions would be obvious and the community would be able to
develop an alternative version. The convenience of "value-added"
services that are often coupled with such connections can be provided
using Free Software as well. This keeps you in control of your personal
data. Your diary remains in your possession. You can have your cake and
eat it too.

Other Related Initiatives

Even though this campaign is about Android, there are other
initiatives that make it possible to use small mobile computers with
(mostly) Free Software. Due to the driver situation of mobile
hardware, none of these initiatives really can run such machines in
freedom. Non-free drivers and firmware are needed for many peripherals
to work.

Contact

If you have any questions about this campaign,
you are invited to send an email to our mailing-list.
Everybody interested in the campaign is
subscribed there,
so your message will reach everybody who is involved.

For general information about FSFE's work that is not related to the "Free Your Android" campaign,
please use the general contact page.

Participating Organisations

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